Carl Brannin (1888-1985)

Carl Brannin’s affiliation and leadership in the Seattle Labor College, ACLU, and Unemployed Citizens’ League led to improvements for the unemployed, workers and non-workers alike during the Great Depression. As editor of Vanguard, his ideas and teachings for reform fell into the hands of many throughout Seattle, creating an air for change.
On September 22, 1888 in Cisco, Texas, Carl Brannin, a devoted social activist and talented journalist, was born. Brannin’s contribution to political and social reform impacted several large cities across America; his influence did not fail to reach Washington. Carl Brannin began his lifelong struggle for social justice and perfected his journalistic abilities while attending the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas. More...

Soon after graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Textile Engineering from Texas A&M, Brannin stumbled upon a novel that would inspire him to take an active role as a political and social reformer. Progress and Poverty,writtenby the economist Henry George, discussed a single-tax theory and stressed the importance of cooperation and social responsibility (deFord 5). In addition to Henry George, other socially conscious authors like Upton Sinclair, Walter Rauschenbusch and Charles M. Sheldon inspired Brannin. In 1914, after being involved in community welfare programs in Dallas, Texas, he accepted a job as the assistant to the reverend of the People’s Church in Cincinnati. While working for the Missouri Land and Labor League, Brannin met Laura Haeckl (deFord 16). Their shared passion for the common good connected them instantly and the couple wed in 1918.

A year after the wedding, Carl accepted the position of organizer and publicist for the Plumb Plan League, an organization who advocated public ownership of railroads. In 1920, the League relocated the Brannins to the progressive city of Seattle, Washington to endorse the organizations campaign. While in Seattle, Brannin struggled to find a steady job because of the skyrocketing unemployment rates caused by the economic depression. Despite his failed jobs, Brannin became acquainted with the radical communities within the city. In their spare time, the couple took part in political activism, such as rallies and strikes across Seattle. After two years of unsuccessful job-hunting, Brannin received good news from Texas - oil had been discovered on a small farm that had been passed down to Carl from his aunt. This discovery provided the couple with a steady income that allowed them to travel within the nation and abroad.

After extensive traveling, the Brannins returned to Seattle in 1925 and adopted a son, Robert Brannin. Following the couple’s return, Carl turned his attention to the labor and radical movements within the city. He became involved in the Seattle Labor College, a school that educated workers on current issues of economics and the working-class, advocated better working conditions for laborers and created solidarity among workers. (Eigner). Brannin participation at the Labor College included holding lectures and debates. Eventually, he became director of the college’s Open Forum and, ultimately, the director of the college. In January 1930, the Seattle Labor College began publishing The Vanguard, a progressive newspaper that became an educational instrument for, and the voice of, unemployed workers. The Vanguard, which Brannin founded and edited, was used as a platform for the Seattle Labor College, the United Citizens League and the local Socialist Party (Eigner). In 1931, Brannin played a key role in developing a Washington chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which was founded to defend the constitutional rights of citizens.

In addition to his work for the Seattle Labor College and ACLU, Brannin also co-founded the Unemployed Citizens League of King County with J.F. Cronnin and Hulet M. Wells, friends and fellow activists. The League worked to achieve political representation and relief for unemployed citizens from local governments and promoted self-help among members. In 1933, the UCL, in collaboration with other organizations, organized several marches to Olympia, Washington to demand relief for the starving, unemployment insurance and free utilities. The marches proved successful. After gaining national attention and becoming a powerful political force, the UCL began to segregate into a Socialist and Communist faction. In response to this political rivalry within the organization, Brannin gave his resignation as executive secretary of the United Citizens League of Seattle in 1932.

Carl and Laura Brannin’s life in Seattle came to an end in March of 1933; the family decided to return to Dallas, Texas. Although the couple left Seattle, they did not leave their fervor for reform behind. Both continued to participate actively in politics and the civil rights movement, as “crusaders for the common good” (deFord iii). After Laura died of cancer in 1965, Carl did not cease in his service to his community until his death on June 16, 1985. -- Dana Mason

Carl Brooks (1908- )

Carl Brooks was a civil rights activist, labor leader, and member of the Communist Party (CP) in the state of Washington. Born in 1908 and raised in Seattle, in 1934 Brooks replaced Revels Cayton as president of the League of Struggle for Negro Rights and during his brief tenure led a number of direct-action protests against segregated businesses in Seattle. In the mid to late 1930s, Brooks, along with several other local Communists, became active in the Washington Commonwealth Federation (WCF), a collection of labor unions and political reformists that quickly emerged as a influential left-wing caucus of the state Democratic Party. In November of 1936, Brooks campaigned on the WCF platform for the state legislature. The following year he represented the WCF in Philadelphia at the second National Negro Congress, a Popular Front effort to unite the various civil rights organizations operating at the time under a single banner. More...

As the leading African American in the Washington Commonwealth Federation, Brooks also spearheaded the WCF's involvement in a number of local civil rights struggles throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s, including efforts to block an anti-interracial marriage bill introduced in 1937, protests against two high-profile police brutality cases involving African American victims in 1938 and 1943, and the WCF's successful campaign to integrate West Seattle's Colman public swimming pool in 1941. As a politically active African American and a member of the Communist Party, Brooks faced a doubled risk of violence and repression. In 1943 his home was firebombed in an effort to enforce a restrictive housing covenant and pressure his family out of its predominantly white neighborhood. In 1947, Brooks became a target of the state legislature's investigative committee on un-American activities, known as the Canwell Committee after its founder and chairman, State Representative Albert Canwell. Although he was never called to testify, Brooks created a stir when he interrupted the testimony of former African American Communist George Hewitt to denounce the proceedings, after which he was forcibly removed from the building. Brooks remained active in union politics through the 1950s, serving as President of the militant Shipscalers Union, and in electoral politics, campaigning for Seattle City Council on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948. However, perhaps because of the anticommunist backlash, scant evidence survives of Brooks' later years and it is unclear when he died or whether he stayed in Seattle after the mid 1950s. –Daren Salter

A. Scott Bullitt (1877-1932)

Alexander Scott Bullitt II was a leader in the development and strengthening of the Democratic Party in Washington State. Never elected to state or national office, Bullitt worked to build the Party as Washington State Democratic National Committeeman from 1928 until his untimely death in 1932. Although he had a relatively short career, Bullitt left an indelible mark on party poltics in the state.
Bullitt was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 23, 1877. The history of the Bullitt family is filled with ties to politics and law; so, it was only natural that A. Scott Bullitt followed in his ancestors footsteps.
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Bullitt lived in Louisville until he left to attend the University of Virginia. After two years, Bullitt transferred to his dream school, Princeton. After graduating with his Bachelors of Arts from Princeton, Bullitt continued his education at Louisville Law School. In 1899 he graduated with his law degree and was admitted to the Kentucky Bar (Bullitt 309, 311).
A. Scott Bullitt began practicing law as a jury lawyer. Shortly after he had begun his practice, Governor J. C. W. Beckham appointed Bullitt as the temporary Sheriff of Jefferson County. His short yet successful run as Sheriff gave Bullitt the political support needed to win the position of Jefferson County Attorney. Bullitt served two terms at the position (Bullitt 312). After losing his third campaign for Jefferson County Attorney in 1918, Bullitt became the Democratic Election Commissioner for the county. The same year he met and married Dorothy Stimson whom would become equally as prominent in Washington.

In 1920, after serving in the Army for two years, A. Scott Bullitt moved to Seattle. In Seattle, the couple found themselves at odds in the political community. During the 1920’s Republicans overran Seattle, leaving the Democratic Party lagging far behind. Scott Bullitt became the leading progressive Democrat in the city (Bullitt 316). In 1924 he attended the Democratic National Convention as a delegate. Two years later, he ran for the U.S. Senate. Although he lost the race, Bullitt’s fight stimulated the Democratic Party in Washington State. During his campaign, Bullitt supported loosening the prohibition laws, raising farm prices and opposed the federal bill that proposed tax cuts for the wealthy.

Just after the 1928 election, Scott was appointed as Washington State Democratic National Committeeman. During the 1930 State Convention, Bullitt proposed the repeal of the 18th Amendment. His motion passed. A year later, Scott was appointed as part of a temporary Board of Councilors for an organization called the “Minute Men of the Democratic National Committee” (Geraghty, 1:22).

His last action for the Democratic Party was the endorsement of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Bullitt was responsible for the organization of the campaign for FDR in the Northwest (Bullitt 318). On April 10, 1932, shortly after he endorsed FDR at the Washington State Convention, Bullitt died of liver and gall bladder cancer.

Though his political career was short, Alexander Scott Bullitt’s influence in Washington State’s Democratic Party was incomparable. He helped make Seattle a stronghold of liberal poltics and his talent and charm influenced many, including future senator Warren G. Magnuson. -- Dana Mason

John Caughlan was instrumental in championing the civil rights of Communist Party members in a legal career spanning six decades. Born in Missouri in 1909 and raised in Seattle, he returned to the Northwest after completing a law degree at Harvard in 1935. He worked briefly for the King County Prosecutor's Office before taking a leave of absence to defend Communists during a red scare in Grays Harbor County. After representing the Grays Harbor Civil Rights Committee he was blocked from returning to his job at King County after refusing to denounce the Soviet Union. Thereafter, he went into private practice and took on some of the most celebrated cases involving Communists and unions in Washington State. More...

He won the right of the Communist Party to field candidates in Washington State elections, defended Communists in proceedings and trials to prevent deportation or incarceration for being members of the Communist Party. He even successfully defended Grays Harbor CP member Dick Law, who was accused by authorities of murdering his wife amid the hysteria of a red scare. His defense of a Seattle machinist charged under the McCarran Act ended up in the US Supreme Court. Although he publicly denied membership in the Communist Party, Caughlan acknowledged, in an unpublished biography, that he joined a "unit" of the party in late 1937 or early 1938. He died, aged 90, in 1999. --Gordon Black

Revels Cayton (1907-1995)

Revels Cayton was the son of a prominent African American publisher and community leader, grandson of the first African American elected to the United States Senate, and brother of noted sociologist Horace Cayton, Jr. Revels carried on the activist tradition of his family through interracial union organizing and radical politics. He joined the Northwest District of the Communist Party in 1934 after serving as secretary of the local chapter of the International Labor Defense. That same year he organized a Seattle chapter of the CP's League of Struggle for Negro Rights and campaigned for city council on the Communist Party ticket. Cayton spearheaded most of the Northwest Party's early initiatives on behalf of African American rights, including actions against segregeted businesses and a proposed legislative ban on interracial marriage, support for the Scottsboro defendants, and the Party's campaign for the freedom of accused murderer Theodore Jordan.
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In addition to his role in the Communist Party, Cayton was a leader in the Marine Cooks and Stewards union (MCS) on the West Coast. When the 1934 waterfront strike began, he left Seattle for San Francisco to organize for the MCS. As a union activist with the MCS and later as Vice President of the California State CIO, Cayton was a tireless advocate for the rights of workers, especially African Americans. In 1945 he was appointed as executive secretary of the National Negro Congress, an umbrella organization of civil rights and progressive labor organizations that was aligned with the Communist Party. When the NNC folded two years later, he returned to California and began to slowly drift away from the Communist Party although he continued to support its ideals. In the 1960s Cayton served on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and as a deputy mayor for social programs. He died in 1995 at the age of eighty-eight. –Daren Salter

Howard Costigan(1904-1985)

Born in 1904, Howard Costigan grew up in Seattle but graduated Centralia High School, where he became president of the student body. He was also a member of the Centralia High debate club for three years. He said he witnessed the infamous assault on the IWW (Wobblies) Hall in Centralia by American Legionnaires on November 11, 1919, an event that shaped the direction of his life to fight for social and economic justice. He attended Whitman College and Bellingham Normal School and trained as a teacher. Costigan rose to prominence as a result of nightly and then twice-nightly political commentaries on KPCB radio. He was also the leading force in publishing the Washington Commonwealth Builder, the journal of the Washington Commonwealth Federation [link to web site on WCF material from earlier class]. In 1936, with the ban on Communist participation in the WCF lifted, he was asked to join the party. This was the era when the WCF became one of the "front" organizations of the Communist Party. More...

The party was then adamantly anti-Nazi and supportive of the Roosevelt administration. But following the 1939 Non-aggression pact between Stalin and Hitler, the CP position on Roosevelt changed, which put Costigan in a tough spot, he later told the Canwell Hearings [link]. The Soviet invasion of Finland furthered his doubts about the Party. According to Eugene Dennett, Costigan went on a religious retreat in 1940. He left the party soon afterwards and testified before the Canwell hearings in 1948. By this point, Costigan had become bitterly opposed to the Communist Party as "undemocratic." Following his testimony, he was vilified by the Communist Party's newspaper, "New World." Revelations that he was an ex-Communist also cost him his broadcasting job, and he came to hate the Canwell Committee to the degree he disliked the Communist Party. He twice ran (1944 and 1946) for the Democratic nomination in opposition to Congressman Hugh Delacy, who was closely linked to the Communist Party. Costigan lost both times but in 1946 Delacy was subsequently defeated by a Republican in the general election. Costigan moved to California in the fifties, settling first in the Los Angeles area and then in Fresno, where he died, aged 81, in 1985.
--Gordon Black

Note: Costigan's papers can be found in the Robert E Burke collection at the University of Washington Special Collections Library.

William Cumming (b.1917)

A nationally regarded painter, a remarkable teacher and political radical, Bill Cumming’s fiery spirit and immense talent has shaped Northwest art for over ninety years. A founding influence of the Northwest School, Cumming worked as a painter with the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project, and was active in the Communist Party until 1957. In the 1960s Cumming began a teaching career at the Burnley School of Professional Art, later renamed the Seattle Art Institute, that continues to this day. More...

William Cumming was born on March 24, 1917 in Montana. His family moved to Oregon when Cumming was a toddler. A few years later, they traveled to Tukwila, Washington, a small town composed of farms. Cumming’s passion for art was revealed at a young age and was encouraged by friends and family. He attended an art course at the International Correspondence School but stopped shortly after classes began, stating that formal learning didn’t suit him. After graduating high school in 1934, Cumming attempted to attend another formal art institute, the Northwest Academy of Art. Once again, Cumming didn’t feel the education was adequate and dropped out a year after enrolling. After his failed attempts at formal training, Cumming spent the next few years making social and political connections throughout Seattle and working on perfecting and improving his artistic abilities.

William was introduced to many prominent artists that would make up the Northwest School of Art. These artists would act as companions and critics for Cumming. Margaret Callahan would be Cumming’s biggest critic and biggest influence. Callahan criticized Cumming for replicating Modigliani and Pascin and recommended that he utilize his talent of portraying bodies in motion. Her comments would have a profound impact on his artistic career. In his memoir, Sketchbook, Cumming recalls Callahan’s importance, “Margaret empowered me to be here, be now, and create my art out of that power of being (140).” With Callahan’s recommendations, as well as other artists’, Cumming’s work became stronger. He gradually entered his pieces into art shows and by 1941 had earned a solo show at the Seattle Art Museum without a pervious display at a commercial gallery, an unprecedented accomplishment. Despite his good luck in the art world, Cumming fell sick of tuberculosis in 1942. He spent a year and a half in Firland Sanatorium before returning home (Cumming, HistoryLink). In spite of his recovery, Cumming could not work.

In 1945, he read Ten Days That Shook the World, a book chronicling the Russian Revolution. The book had such an impact on Cumming that he joined the Communist Party shortly thereafter (Cumming, HistoryLInk). Cumming participated in the Party by working on the Russian war relief in Spokane. Soon, his dedication to politics exceeded his dedication to the arts. Cumming worked on formulating support for Trotskyism across Washington State. However, his commitment to the Communist Party was chastised during the McCarthy era when he was blacklisted. This exclusion lasted nearly six years. In 1957, Cumming ended his membership with the Communist Party and the radical movement entirely. His passion for painting was relinquished.

After his affiliation with the Communist Party ended, Cumming continued to create highly regarded works of art, which he displayed and sold at numerous art shows. In 1963, he began teaching classes at the Burnley School of Professional Art. During the 1980’s the school was renamed the Art Institute of Seattle (Cumming, HistoryLink). Bill continues to teach at the Art Institute to this day. -- Dana Mason

Hugh DeLacy (1901-1976)

Hugh DeLacy was president of the Washington Commonwealth Federation from 1940-1945. He was born in Seattle in 1901 and worked as a marine fireman and a laborer before earning a Master's Degree in English at the University of Washington in 1932. He first gained notoriety in 1937 when he decided to campaign for the Seattle City Council. At the time DeLacy was a young English professor at the UW, but was fired by the university when he declared his candidacy. DeLacy's dismissal provoked a storm of protest among progressives and labor groups, led by the Washington Commonwealth Federation. He was ultimately elected to the city council as a WCF Democrat. More...

In 1944 he was elected to the United States Congress, again running as a left-wing Democrat, filling the seat vacated by Warren Magnussen. The Democratic Party, which turned rightward after World War II, refused to endorse him for reelection in 1946 and he was defeated. DeLacy next turned to Henry Wallace's Progressive Party, directing the Ohio branch of the party after his term in Congress ended. He spent the last years of his life in the Los Angeles area working as a carpenter and contractor. He died of cancer in 1976. –Daren Salter

Eugene Dennett (1908-1989)

Dennett, the son of socialists who named him after socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs, was born in Massachusetts in 1908 and raised in Oregon. He trained as a teacher and was living in Portland when he joined the Communist Party in 1931. The following year, he quit his job to become district agitprop in Seattle. Working in both Seattle and later Bellingham, he became active in the Inland Boatmen's Union and helped to recruit members for the party. As a result of a red scare arising from early inquiries of the state committee on Un-American activities set up by Senator Albert Canwell [link], Dennett was rumored to be an FBI informant, a charge he denied. During meetings with the disciplinary arm of the Communist Party, the District Control Commission, Dennett was accused of being "subjective" and of holding an "anti-leadership attitude.
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From Gordon Black's paper Organizing the Unemployed: " Northwest party chairman Henry Huff and district organizing secretary Clayton Van Lydegraf signed his expulsion letter from the Communist Party. Although he was only a party member for 16 years, Dennett's legacy extended well beyond his period of membership. He was an aggrieved party member who ultimately sought to redress his unfair treatment by providing testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1955. This, in turn, further alienated him from many in the Communist Party and on the Left, though he continued to be active in the Steelworkers' Union. He was expelled from it in 1954. Dennett's book, Agitprop The Life of an American Working-Class Radical: The Autobiography of Eugene V. Dennett is one of the few comprehensive accounts written by someone inside the Communist Party in the Northwest."

Dennett speaks of his early experiences with the working-class, “…I saw squalor and misery among honest, hard working people who lived, worked, and died without experiencing the real joys of living” (Dennett 2). His awareness of class conflict and oppression was intensified during high school when a family friend recommended that Dennett read socialist pamphlets and other books. These included Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll’s 44 Lectures Complete, which taught him that religion was not the solution to social problems (Dennett 4).

After graduating from college, Dennett began teaching elementary school in Oregon.
In 1931, depression was sweeping across America. Although he remained employed as a teacher, his pockets took a heavy hit. The same year, Dennett joined the Communist Party looking for like-minded people who were hoping for change in the economic and social atmosphere of America. Under the Party, he assumed the pseudonym “Victor Haines” and worked on agitprop with the Northwestern Party District Bureau in Seattle.
In 1932 unemployment was a critical issue in Seattle. In his autobiograpny Dennett recalls that the only people who were employed in Seattle were government employees; however, even those workers received wage cuts (Dennett 7). The

Unemployed Citizens League concentrated their efforts on unemployment relief by lobbying politicians. The politicians promised to allocate more aid under one condition: the UCL must ban all Communist affiliates from speaking at engagements. Although the UCL agreed to these terms, Dennett was one of the few Communist members that were allowed to speak at UCL activities. In these speeches, he advocated a change in the economic and political systems of America. Dennett suggested resisting utility shut-offs and evictions while leaders worked to change the systems. Dennett was a strong supporter of the UCL; this was one of the many disagreements between his ideologies and those of the national leaders of the Communist Party.

Throughout his time as a member of the Party, Dennett was constantly coming into conflict with Northwest Party leaders. “Dennett was an idealist who sought to unify theoretical principle, policy, and practice (Dennett x).” In 1932, Dennett moved from Seattle to Bellingham after a public disagreement between himself and Party district organizer, Alex Noral.

In Bellingham, Dennett assumed the position of Party organizer. When he arrived there were only seven members in the city of Bellingham. The members were extremely disciplined but removed from political activity (Dennett 32). Dennett believed that the Bellingham sector needed to become more visible to the public; thus, he urged the seven members to join the People’s Council of Bellingham. Although this was against the Party’s policies, Dennett saw it in the members’ best interest. The People’s Council met regularly, charged minimal dues, held protests, advocated relief for the hungry and resisted evictions. Because of Dennett’s participation, many members from the People’s Council joined the Communist Party. Within his short time in Bellingham, the local sector of the Party grew to over one hundred and fifty members. The growth in members gave Dennett the support he needed to start a Marxist school (Dennett 45).

After returning to Seattle in 1933, Dennett’s participation with the Party nearly ceased. The lack of responsibilities being delegated to him led him to become involved in several other labor organizations, unions and political movements. Shortly after returning, he assisted the Marine Workers Industrial Union and the Central UCL. In spring of 1934, Dennett became a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps. While a member of the CCC, Dennett participated in the Longshoremen’s Strike of 1934. However, he was expelled from the organization in 1935 due to his “radical, pro-labor leanings (Dennett xii).” His expulsion did not slow him down.
Shortly after his expulsion, Dennett became a maritime worker. While working, he played an important role in the Ferryboatmen’s strikes of 1935 and 1936. His leadership in these strikes caught the eye of local Communist Party leaders and he was recruited as district leader once again. Later in 1936, Dennett became active in the Washington Commonwealth Foundation. Through the WCF he managed the campaign of Seattle City Councilmember Hugh DeLacy. Eventually, Dennett was elected president of the Washington Commonwealth Foundation.

In addition to his participation and leadership in the WCF, Dennett was a member and supporter of the state CIO Political Welfare Committee, Party Bureau(?), Maritime Federation of the Pacific, Seattle Central Labor Council, AFL’s Committee for Industrial Organization, and Washington Industrial Union Council (WIUC-CIO). After becoming a member of the WIUC-CIO, Dennett was elected the first Executive Secretary of the organization. He held this position for two years before he was removed from office in 1940 due to a conflict with regional and national CIO leaders.

After returning from service during WWII, Dennett noticed a change in the Communist Party and felt he no longer “fit in” (Dennett xv). In 1947, he was expelled from the Party on accusations of being an informant. After his expulsion from the Party, Dennett worked in the Steel Workers Organizing Committee as recording secretary and grievance committeeman. In these positions, he helped achieve safer working conditions, justice on the job and the highest possible wages for shopmates. In 1954, Dennett was expelled from the Steel Workers Union, however, the discharge “…appears to have been a blatantly framed-up expulsion.” (Dennett xv) He continued working until he retired in 1972.

Although Eugene Dennett’s struggle to combine socialist and democratic ideals often resulted in disagreements between him and other activist leaders, he made great strides to implement solutions for the working-class. A natural born leader and passionate radical, Dennett had a profound and lasting influence on Washington State’s labor and political movements. -- Dana Mason

John Francis Dore (1881-1938)

John F. Dore’s served as mayor of Seattle from 1932-1934 and again from 1936 until his death in 1938. He began his political career as a fiscal conservative but by his second term he had almost completely reversed his ideology, defending labor, refusing to cut wages for municipal workers and supporting strikers. John Francis Dore was born December 11, 1881 in Boston, Massachusetts but moved to Seattle with his family in 1893 (Wilma). He returned to Massachusetts to attend Harvard then came back to Seattle in 1903 to work as a journalist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer among other newspapers.
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A successful trial attorney, Dore ran for prosecuting attorney in 1930 proposing to serve without pay which his opponents declared a form of bribery to the constituents. Dore lost the campaign and despite an attempt to have him disbarred he was cleared of all charges. His break came in 1931 when incumbent Mayor Frank Edwards fired popular Seattle Light superintendent James Ross resulting in a public outcry. Voters recalled Frank Edwards and in 1932 Dore ran against the appointed replacement, Robert Harlin, easily winning the election.

Immediately after taking office Dore cut municipal workers pay as well as the city budget by 2.5 million (Wilma). Despite the overwhelming disapproval of his cost cutting efforts Dore continued to lay off employees and reduce services (University). He did work with other Puget Sound mayors in order to convince Governor Roland Hartley to distribute relief funds, but to no avail. The Mayor and the Unemployed Citizens League disagreed over how the relief funds should be used and he distanced himself even further from unemployed voters when he spoke out against a UCL march. All this cost Dore the election in 1934 to Charles L. Smith.

An interesting transition came when Dore sought the office of mayor again in 1936. This time he forged a strong relationship with Teamster leader Dave Beck. In his 1936 mayorship campaign Dore declared no wage cuts for municipal workers and strongly supported the labor movement (Wilma). This time he won. He publicly proclaimed to repay Dave Beck for all his help in the campaign and stood true to his word. On August 13, 1936 the American Newspaper Guild strikes the Seattle P-I and Dore refuses to send police to the picket lines. He even joins the strike to show his support (Wilma). The strike grows and moves to the Seattle Times and the Star finally prompting the papers to settle with the strikers. The relationship with Dave Beck is mutually beneficial. Beck’s career blooms with Dore’s support.

Failing health towards the end of 1937 stopped Dore from serving as mayor although he still fileed for reelection. He lost the race to Arthur Langlie and on April 18, 1938, while still Mayor of Seattle passes away from complications due to the flu and pneumonia (Wilma). -- Christopher Smith

Charles F. Ernst (1886 - 1968)

Charles F. Ernst was the first director of the Washington State Emergency Relief Administration ( SERA), which would later be renamed the State Department of Social Security , serving from 1933 to 1938. He was appointed by Governor Clarence D. Martin, a conservative Democrat, and the two shared the belief that many of the unemployed were able-bodied men and women not trying hard enough to find jobs. Acting on this stern view, Ernst kept a close watch on relief services and came under a lot of criticism from organizations supporting the unemployed during the Great Depression.
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Charles F. Ernst was born in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts in 1886. He attended Harvard University and worked as a social worker in Boston for eight years. He then worked for the Hood Rubber Company, who transferred him to Seattle in 1927. In 1931, two years into the Great Depression, he began working for the Mayor's Committee for Unemployment Relief. On January 1933, Governor Martin chose the former social worker to lead the newly developed SERA. SERA was responsible for organizing public works employment and relief services for the unemployed and Ernst initially established a voucher system, allowing the unemployed or impoverished families to buy supplies and food at the stores with coupons issued by the state. SERA also made sure that all Washington counties received similar and equal relief funding. However, since Ernst was worried about cheaters and determined to force all those who could work to look for jobs, the SERA began checking up on families on relief to make sure they qualified under their rules. As a result, in the first six weeks, 20,000 relief recipients lost benefits.

Both Governor Martin and Ernst did not approve of unemployment relief and instead placed funds toward social security, insisting it was the family's, rather than the governments, responsibility to pull out of unemployment. This led him to cut back on federal work relief funds in 1937 and cut off 24,000 Washington citizens on relief by 1938, the same years when Washington was in a recession. All of these cutbacks drew tension statewide but Ernst kept firm in his beliefs and agency’s rules.

Ernst, for the most part, ignored the deepening unemployment problem and concentrated on other kinds of social services, including child welfare and old-age pension. The Social Security Act was passed in August 1935 and for the most part, did not deal with the chronic unemployment problem that was overwhelming during the Great Depression. Two months after the Social Security Act passed, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was established, a New Deal program that employed workers for state work. Ernest was in charge of the hiring process of the WPA and although the WPA did hire thousands in its first year, there were many still without jobs. However, Washington fared better than most states on behalf of the WPA program in the state.

In 1939, Ernst formally resigned from his position as Social Security director and accepted a job with the American Public Welfare Association. He later worked for the American Red Cross, War Relocation Authority, and other various social services positions until his retirement in 1953. On July 29, 1968 Charles F. Ernst passed away from a heart attack. -- Jiwon Amy Yoo

“Preliminary Guide to the Charles F. Ernst Papers 1929-1946.” University of Washington, Special Collections http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcoll/findaids/docs/papersrecords/ErnstCharlesF0183.xml>.

Mary U. Farquharson (1901-1982)

Mary Farquharson, Senator of Washington State from 1935-1941, was a fierce advocate for social justice and peace. She was involved in several organizations including the ACLU, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. During her time as Senator she fought to end racial discrimination, improve education and secure fair employment practices, especially for women. Born Mary Ulanah Nichols on April 5, 1901 in Tacoma, Washington, she studied at the University of Washington and received a degree in English in 1925 (Farquharson). During her time at the UW she met Frederick Farquharson, a professor of Civil Engineering. The two married June 22, 1925. More...

In 1934, encouraged by fellow feminists, Mary ran for public office as a Democrat (Farquharson). She won a seat in the Washington State Senate serving the 46th district. Farquharson’s husband shared her same passion for political and economic reform and in 1935 the two helped to establish the Washington Commonwealth Federation which was dedicated to improving economic and political conditions through organized labor and the Democratic Party. Farquharson helped to establish the local affiliate of the ACLU in Seattle and she was active in the non-sectarian Church of the People which advocated peace and social justice (Farquharson).

As WWII drew closer both Mrs. Farquharson and her husband became involved in the peace movement, working as members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation as well as the National Council for the Prevention of War. Farquharson was a staunch defender of the rights of Japanese Americans who were interred in Washington State. Specifically, she fought for Gordon Kiyoshi Hirabayashi, an American of Japanese descent, who defied the government interment order and curfew (Barber). Farquharson was instrumental in obtaining legal representation for Gordon Hirabayashi from the ACLU. His case went all the way to the Supreme Court where it was eventually lost but Former Senator Farquharson, along with the ACLU, supported him the entire time (Eisenburg).

After WWII Mrs. Farquharson helped to promote humanitarian aid in Europe. Up until her death she was involved in a number of causes relating to peace and other issues she considered to be worth fighting including ending the nuclear arms race as well as the death penalty (Farquharson). Mary Farquharson passed away in 1982.n -- Christopher Smith

Bibliography

Barber, Mike. "Hirabayashi was one who wouldn't give in ." 26 November 1999. Seattle P-I. 20 November 2009 <http://www.seattlepi.com/century/hira26.shtml>.

Roland Hill Hartley (1864-1952)

Roland Hill Hartley served as mayor of Everett, Washington from 1910 to 1911 and as governor of Washington State from 1924 to 1932. An influential politician and conservative businessman, Hartley clashed politically with those involved in education, lumber and the labor movement. He staunchly opposed what he considered to be excessive government spending, including welfare and higher education. His term as governor of Washington was marked most notably by his dismissal of University of Washington president Henry Suzzallo, who refused to accept Hartley’s attempts to cut funding to the university. In 1926, just two years into his governorship, there was a petition to recall Hartley from office, mainly as a result of the firing of Henry Suzzallo, but insufficient signatures were received to move the recall forward.
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Born on June 26, 1864 in New Brunswick, Canada, Roland Hill Hartley was 1 of 12 children. At age 13 he left home to find work and after his father died the family moved to Minnesota (Riddle). He held many jobs as a young man but specifically his time working as a personal secretary for Minnesota Governor David Marston Clough changed the course of his life. Hartley married Clough’s daughter, Nina, in 1888 and by 1902 the entire family, including their two sons, had moved to Everett in order to pursue interests in the lumber industry. Their third child, a daughter, was born in Everett (Riddle).

The Hartley and Cough families enjoyed success in timber business. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake timber prices rose dramatically and Hartley found even greater wealth. At this time, however, he chose to pursue a career in politics and in 1909 ran for the office of mayor of Everett. Hartley stayed for just one term. After a brief stint as state legislator from 1915 to 1916, he decided to run for governor. In both 1916 and 1920 Hartley ran for the position and lost. In 1924, however, the incumbent, Louis F. Hart did not pursue the office as a result of failing health and his likely successor chose not to enter the race (Riddle). Hartley, therefore, had no completion and took the office of governor.

Between 1924 and 1932 Hartley struggled to defeat the eight-hour workday, an anti-child-labor movement, and to cut spending in the state’s universities. His minimalist government approach did not sit well with many constituents especially as the Great Depression set in. Hartley said, “What we need is to…stop this indiscriminate spending of money in so-called charity and welfare work” (Seattle P.I., May, 6, 1925). He believed children were too “petted, pampered” and “educated at the expense of the state” (Seattle P.I., May, 5, 1925). His battle with Henry Suzzallo came to an end when Hartley removed two members of the board of regents at the university and subsequently fired three more, replacing them with appointees loyal to him. The Seattle Times called it “a ruthless exercise in executive power” (Hartley). Finally, the board fired Suzzallo in 1926. That same year the Seattle labor council published a telegram from the American Federation of Labor urging the recall of Hartley due to his anti-labor record (Hartley).

Political support for Hartley diminished greatly in the early 1930s and his run for governor in 1932 as well as 1936 resulted in defeat. Hartley retired and spent the rest of his life in Everett passing away on September 21, 1952. -- Christopher Smith

Hutchen Hutchins (1903-1990)

Hutchen R. Hutchins attended the Lenin School in Moscow in the late 1920s. In 1932 he moved from New York City to Seattle to serve on a three-member District 12 Communist Party Executive Committee. That same year he helped organize one of the largest demonstrations of unemployed workers in the State's history. In 1933 he was replaced, along with the other two members of the Executive Committee, by a new Executive Secretary, Morris Rappaport. Hutchins stayed in Seattle and retained a Marxist political orientation, although it is unclear whether he remained an official member of the Communist Party. In the late 1930s he was president of the Negro Workers Council, an Urban League-initiated worker education program. More...

In 1940, Hutchins organized a broad coalition of African American community leaders into the Committee for the Defense of Negro Labor's Right to Work at the Boeing Airplant Company (CDNL) to pressure Boeing into complying with FEPC regulations. Due in large measure to Hutchins' work on the CDNL and for Seattle's African American newspaper, The Northwest Enterprise, Boeing hired its first black employees in 1942. The CDNL marked the height of Hutchins' public visibility as a civil rights leader. However, he remained active in struggles for worker rights and racial justice over at least the next thirty years, including the United Black Construction Workers' efforts to integrate the Seattle Building Trades Unions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. –Daren Salter

Joseph Sylvester Jackson (b.1904?- )

Joseph S. Jackson was the first executive secretary of the Seattle Urban League, which was founded in 1930. He also established the African American branch of the Unemployed Citizens’ League during the start of the Great Depression in 1931 and was the first to organize statistical studies of Seattle’s African American community.
Jackson graduated from Livingston College in Salisbury, North Carolina in the summer of 1928 and that following fall, he enrolled the New York School of Social Work with a fellowship awarded to him by the National Urban League. He worked at Brooklyn Urban League briefly before leaving New York to fill Seattle Urban League’s position in 1930.
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He attended the University of Washington for his graduate studies in sociology. His 1939 thesis for his Masters degree, titled, The Colored Marine Employees Benevolent Association of the Pacific 1921-1934 or Implications of Vertical Mobility for Negro Stewards in Seattle, was an implication that Jackson was quite active in the early civil rights movement in Seattle. The thesis focused on the importance of the black employment as stewards and their labor union during the indicated years.

Although the African American community in Seattle was small compared to other cities’ population, Jackson’s work in the Seattle Urban League was much needed. During Jackson’s first year in Seattle Urban League he organized the Negro Health Week and Vocational Opportunity program. In September 1931, due to the unfortunate outcomes of the Great Depression, Jackson helped with the founding of the Unemployed Citizens’ League for African Americans to help with the alarming unemployment problem among Seattle’s Black workers. By the third year, Jackson and Seattle Urban League helped with the building of a secretarial school. They also held public forums for job opportunities and voting registration, two important topics in Seattle’s African American community during the Great Depression. Taking notice of the little attention Seattle’s African Americans received, he started to gather statistical information on their health, education, and employment for research purposes. In 1938, he also wrote a booklet for the Seattle Urban League and the title speaks for itself, “What to tell them; a booklet designed to be of special service to counselors, guidance workers and agencies, with reference to negro girls and boys in Seattle; and for the use of students themselves ...”

Jackson was also the leading actor in a theatrical play titled “In Abraham’s Bosom,” which was performed Seattle Repertory Playhouse in 1933. Little is known about Jackson’s life before and after his time with Seattle’s Urban League, which ended in 1939. -- Jiwon Amy Yoo

Bibliography

Jackson, Joseph S. The Colored Marine Employees Benevolent Association of the Pacific 1921-1934 or Implications of Vertical Mobility for Negro Stewards in Seattle University of
Washington Thesis, 1939.

Taylor, Quintard. The Forgin a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994.

Wesley Livsey Jones (1863 - 1932)

Wesley L. Jones was a Republican Congressman and U.S. Senator from Washington. He labeled himself "conservatively progressive" and was a strong supporter of President Herbert Hoover. He drafted the Jones Merchant Marine Act of 1920 and became increasingly involved with the local farmer’s depression in Washington. He was also a strong advocate of Prohibition, which brought upon him criticism throughout his political career. Jones was born on October 9, 1863 in Bethany, Illinois just days after his father died on a Civil War battlefield. Raised by his mother on a small farm, Jones grew up in a very religious and conservative home. He attended Southern Illinois College, receiving his A.B. degree, then began studying law, passingthe bar in 1886, which is the same year he married Minda Nelson. More...

In 1889, the couple moved to Yakima, Washington where they stayed until 1917. He then moved to Seattle and established a law firm with two friends. By then, his political career had already started with the Republican Party. In 1898, Jones was elected to the House of Representatives, which he stayed for ten years until he was elected Senator in 1908. He would then serve in the Senate for four terms, being re-elected in 1914, 1920, and 1926. He also led the Commerce Committee, allowing Jones to become a powerful leader in the Republican Party. Throughout his political career, he thought of himself as a bridge between the Democratic and Republican Party as he voted for measures that went against his party, such as funding for unemployment relief and lower taxation. Yet, his firm stance with President Hoover during the Great Depression would become the reason for his -and the Republican Party’s- fall at the 1932 elections. As Senator, his work with the Jones Merchant Marine Act of 1920 was widely supported as it protected American shipping of international goods. He also realized that the farmers’ votes could help his Party during elections, so during a farmer’s depression during the 1920s, he coaxed farmers to vote for his party and tried to aid them. But he was most known for his support of prohibition of alcohol, which almost made him lose his election in 1926. As the Great Depression worsened, the prohibition law became increasingly unpopular and America began to blame the Republican Party for the law. In the 1932 elections, Jones’ association with the Republican Party and Prohibition made him lose his would-be fifth term as Senator. He was replaced with the liberal Homer T. Bone. Three weeks after his loss, Wesley L. Jones died in November 19, 1932 in Seattle, Washington due to his ailing health. -- Jiwon Amy Yoo

Warren G. Magnuson (1905-1989)

Democratic Senator from Washington State, Warren G. Magnuson, made legislation that led to the development and preservation of the United States, Washington State and Seattle. The playboy turned politician used his gregarious personality, good looks, ambition, intelligence and political savvy to help raise Washington State from the crisis of the Great Depression.
Warren G. Magnuson was born on April 12, 1905 in Moorhead, Minnesota. Shortly after his birth, William and Emma Magnuson, a local couple, adopted him. Due to an absence of birth data, certain specifications of his infanthood are missing (Scates 9).
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After graduating from Moorhead High School, Magnuson attended the University of North Dakota and North Dakota Agricultural College before moving to Seattle to attend the University of Washington and pursue his high school sweetheart, Loretta Welsh (Scates 17).

Magnuson enrolled at the University of Washington in October of 1925. After completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Washington, he was accepted into the School of Law. While attending law school, he began his political career by campaigning across Washington for Democratic candidate, and Magnuson’s mentor, A. Scott Bullitt. During the summer of 1928, Magnuson married his first wife Eleanor Peggy Maddieux. In 1929, Magnuson graduated and was accepted to the bar the same year. Soon after graduation, Magnuson was offered a job as the secretary of the Seattle Municipal League (Scates 29). This position allowed him to establish “…enduring contact with the city’s movers and shakers… (Scates 31)”

In 1932, Magnuson left the Seattle Municipal League to become a special prosecutor for King County. Soon after, he ran for office and won a seat as a state legislator in Seattle. In 1933, Washingtonians called for relief by staging hunger marches to the capital. Still in the midst of the Great Depression, unemployment in Washington State was climbing higher and citizens called for unemployment insurance to alleviate the hardships created by the Depression. Magnuson saw the necessity of the legislation and gave a convincing argument to the legislature. Due in part to Magnuson’s moving speech, one of the first national relief acts for the unemployed was passed. The bill created a ten million dollar bond issue to hire unemployed workers on public works projects. Part of the relief act included the Grand Coulee Dam project. In an attempt to recover the Northwest from depression, Magnuson and other legislators called for the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. The construction of the dam created jobs for the unemployed and provided inexpensive electricity. In addition to the Grand Coulee, the unemployment relief act went towards the Roza irrigation project, the Deception Pass Bridge and Seattle’s Washington Park Arboretum. These projects “helped shape the modern state (Scates 38).” That same year, Magnuson played a key role in the movement to repeal Washington’s prohibition laws.

Shortly after his term in state politics, Magnuson filled and empty seat in the U.S. Congress. Magnuson concentrated on the Naval Affairs Committee and domestic issues for Washington State during his first few years in Congress. His efforts would result in the increased federal presence in Washington State. Despite his lack of experience, he was able to get four and a half million dollars “for a new dock at the base and for the modernization in Bremerton of the aircraft carriers… (Scates 69)” Magnuson’s ties with Northwest Airlines and Archer Daniels Midland also created wealth and assistance to the Pacific Northwest. Despite Maggie’s connections with the big guys, he continued to keep his working-class constituents satisfied. In 1940, he voted against deporting Harry Bridges, the leader of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union.

Magnuson’s legislations continued to enrich the Northwest into the 1940’s. Regardless of his anti-war position, with Magnuson as middleman, the war business boosted Washington’s economy tremendously (Scates 93). The purchase of ten million dollars in ships from Bremerton Naval Shipyard by the Navy, the sixty million dollar contract Boeing received from the military and the manufacturing of aluminum through the hydroelectricity produced by Northwest dams were just a few of the projects involved (Scates 92).

Just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Magnuson took a leave of absence from Congress to join the war effort. He served in the Navy until July 1942 when President Roosevelt ordered all congressmen to return to their seats. His participation in the war increased his popularity as a candidate for the Senate.

In 1944, Magnuson was elected to the Senate after defeating Republican Harry P. Cain (Magnuson, Warren G. (1905-1989)). Throughout his thirty-six-year term in the Senate, Warren G. Magnuson consistently worked to produce public works projects; he also helped pass legislation that allocated federal funds for medical research, supported consumer protection and helped pass the 1964 civil rights bill. His seniority in the Senate gave way to power within the political structure and allowed Maggie to continue to make huge strides for Washington State and the nation until his death on May 20, 1989. -- Dana Mason

Clarence Daniel Martin (1886- 1955)

Clarence Daniel Martin was Washington State's eleventh governor from 1933 to 1941. Elected during the troubled times of the Great Depression, Martin and the Democratic Party nearly wiped off the unpopular Republican rule in Washington. He is significantly known for endorsing the building of the Grand Coulee Dam, opening up the University of Washington’s admissions, and for reformatting the tax system.
Martin’s parents, Francies M. and Philena Martin moved west from Ohio and settled in Cheney, Washington where he was born on June 29, 1886. He graduated from the State Normal School in Cheney in 1903 and in 1906 he graduated from the University of Washington. After graduation, he returned to Cheney to help his father with the family's milling business, F.M. Martin Grain and Milling Company, which he took over as CEO after his father's death in 1925 until 1943. More...

His political career began in 1915, when Martin was elected into Cheney's city council. In 1928 he was elected mayor of Cheney and at the same time, served as the chairman of the State Democratic Committee. A conservative Democrat, Martin was elected governor in 1932, ending Roland Hill Hartley’s unpopular rule. He was elected by “one of the largest popular votes in the state” defeating Hartley, a conservative Republican, twice in 1932 and again in 1936.

Elected during the height of the Great Depression, Martin's platform included relief for state's unemployed, rescuing higher education, and tax reform. Building the Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams provided jobs and electricity. He lowered the requirements of admissions and tuition for the University of Washington, which opened the doors to more students.. Martin also presided over the reorganization of the state’s tax system, placing a limit on property taxes and instituting a sales tax. Other programs he helped establish were the State Planning Council and an Emergency Relief Administration,

Although Martin was well-received by the public, he did not get along with the labor movement in Seattle. Seemingly conservative, he helped defeat a 1935 bill for public welfare which disappointed liberals and labor unions, such as the Unemployed Citizens League. However, they could not stop Martin from getting re-elected in 1936. His second term was filled with challenges like the Seattle’s P-I strike, the first successful strike by professional journalists. Martin opposed calling in the National Guard, not wanting to repeat his previous mistakes with earlier labor strikes, which strengthened his image with the State Federation of Labor. Yet, his third attempt for governor failed in 1940 as he lost to Senator C.C. Dill in the primary election.

In 1944, Martin served a session in the state House of Representatives, filling in a vacant spot. His last political position was for Cheney City Council when he was re-elected in 1950. Martin also worked as the director of the American Bank of Spokane and the Seattle First National Bank, which he left in April of 1955 due to his failing health. On August 11, 1955 Clarence Daniel Martin died at the age of sixty-nine.

Theresa McMahon (1878-1961)

Theresa Schmid McMahon, a professor of Economics at the University of Washington and noted liberal, was a scholar activist in the struggles for women's rights and labor rights. One of only a handful of female faculty members at the University, she worked for unionization, collective bargaining, an eight-hour workday, a minimum wage law, as well as gender equality.
Theresa Schmid was born on April 29, 1878 in Tacoma, Washington. At the age of sixteen she enrolled at the University of Washington where later she met her future husband and life-long friend, Edward McMahon.
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As an undergraduate she worked closely with professor J. Allen Smith, learning, she later wrote, about the “injustice that occurred in the industrial field: the exploitation of common resources by the few and the exploitation of the workers.”

After graduating with a Bachelors of Arts degree in 1899, she began teaching at a Seattle high school. In 1906, Theresa and Ed McMahon both enrolled in PhD programs at the University of Wisconsin. Theresa earned her doctorate in 1909 and accepted a position as a social worker at Hull House in Chicago. Her work at Hull House, in addition to her job as a statistician at The Associate Charities of Chicago, introduced her to the struggles of the poor. As McMahon discusses in her memoir, My Story, “…this experience stood me in good stead when it came to interpreting the labor problems of the country (18).”

In 1911, the McMahons returned to Seattle. Despite the sexism found within educational institutions at the time, Dr. J Allen Smith offered Theresa a position in the economics department. She began teaching elementary economics and later added classes in labor history and legislation. She became a prominent advocate for social reform legislation, lobbing for an employer liability law and an eight-hour workday. After the state passed a minimum wage law, she was appointed to a position on the Minimum Wage Board, a commission that would “determine what a minimum wage should be and to see that it was enforced."
Her participation in the labor movement caused problems at the University. On several occasions, there were threats to fire the McMahons, as well as other activist professors.

McMahon also distinguished herself as an advocate for working women’s rights. She was part of a small number of women in the field of economics and refused to accept or conform to mainstream gender standards. She published studies about the relationship of women and economics and McMahon may have been the first person at the University of Washington to introduce a course in the study of women.

Theresa McMahon and other female professors at the University had experienced discrimination based on sex throughout their careers. In 1936, the Board of Regents established an anti-nepotism rule aimed at women. Women could not employed at the University if their husbands held a position. Several female faculty members were fired in the years following. Since the rule was not supposed to be retroactive, McMahon could not be fired. But UW President Lee Paul Sieg pressured the Economics professor to retire. In June 1937, she ended her last class at the University of Washington.
After her retirement McMahon continued to serve other causes like social security reform.

McMahon passed away on June 27, 1961 at the age of 83. The fearless radical would not be forgotten. McMahon Hall, a student residence hall at the University of Washington, today honors UW's most famous female Economics professor. -- Dana Mason

Bibliography

McMahon, Theresa, My Story Seattle: 1961.

Gottfried, Erika, Theresa S. McMahon 1977

William J. Pennock (1915-1953)

Bill Pennock joined the Communist Party in 1936 while a student at the University of Washington. From 1936-1938, he worked for the Washington Commonwealth Federation, first as a secretary and then as an elected member of the WCF executive committee. He left the WCF in December of 1938 to organize neighborhood locals for the newly incorporated Washington Old Age Pension Union, which, became the first government-funded pension program for senior citizens in the United States. Pennock was elected to the State Legislature in 1938, running as a Democrat. He would be reelected in 1940, 1942, and again 1944.
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From the state legislature Pennock continued to champion the Washington Pension Union and was elected president of the organization in 1944. He broke with the Democratic Party after World War II and helped found Washington State's Progressive Party in 1948. In 1953 Pennock was one of seven Northwest Communist Party leaders arrested and tried for conspiracy under the Smith Act. During the trial, Pennock died from an overdose of sleeping pills. His death was officially ruled a suicide. --Daren Salter

Terry Pettus (1904-1984)

Terry Pettus was born in 1904 in Wisconsin and claimed to be a socialist by the time he was 16. After working as an office boy at a newspaper, Pettus entered journalism, working for various newspapers in Minnesota. He moved with his wife to the Seattle area in the late Twenties, where they joined the Cherry Street Art Colony. After a brief stint with the Seattle Star, Pettus moved to the Tacoma Ledger in 1928 and was instrumental in establishing a union agreement covering the then three Tacoma newspapers. Pettus was elected president of the Newspaper Guild, and lead a bitter 91-day strike over union recognition for the guild in Seattle.
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In 1938, Pettus joined the Communist Party and between 1939 and 1948 was editor of the Washington New Dealer and its successor, The New World. He also became editor of the People's World. During the red scare of the fifties, he was one of the Seattle Seven accused of conspiracy under the Smith Act. He was sentenced to five years but was released after the case went to the US Supreme Court on appeal. He had already spent 73 days in jail for contempt after refusing to name others in the witch hunt for communists. He left the party in the late fifties but remained active - challenging the city of Seattle over plans to restrict Lake Union houseboats. Pettus died in 1984 at the age of 80. --Gordon Black

Note: there are paper pertaining to Pettus in the Washington Pension Union and Robert E Burke collections at the University of Washington Special Collections Library.

James Delmage Ross (1872–1939)

James Delmage Ross (JD Ross) was the second superintendent for Seattle City Light, a public-owned electricity company which started in 1905. He helped with the building of the Cedar River’s power plant and the dam projects on the Skagit River. He is best known for his support of public power in Western Washington.
Ross was born in Chatham, Ontario on November 9, 1872. He graduated from Chatham Collegiate Institute in 1891 and taught for the next six years. In 1898, he ventured up to Alaska for the Klondike Gold Rush, but found no luck in the gold fields. He then ended up in Seattle in 1902 and established a small electrical contracting firm that did not fare well. He ended up closing his business but found an engineering job with the City of Seattle in January 1903.
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Before the Great Depression, many of the power companies were privately-owned. This led to many political debates on public vs. private power companies and Ross a primary promoter for public power. When the Cedar Falls project was proposed and approved by voters in 1902, Ross was hired to design the new power plant.

The City of Seattle established a new department for light and power in 1910 and named it Seattle City Light, of which Ross became superintendent after the original superintendent redesigned just a year later. Ross’ most influential project soon got under way when he proposed to build three dams on the Skagit River. This way power could be readily available and affordable in Seattle and its neighboring towns. However, a private company from Boston called Stone and Webster already had set their sights on Skagit River. After years of legal battling, the Secretary of Agriculture David F. Houston gave permission to Seattle City Light to build the dams on Skagit River in 1917. Even with the construction of the dams underway, the debate and political controversy of public vs. private continued, with Ross in the middle of it all. Seattle’s Mayor Frank Edwards fired Ross on March 1931, which led many to believe that Edwards was working with Stone and Webster. After a successful protest to recall Mayor Edwards from office, Ross was re-hired for Seattle City Light.

The building of the dams proved to be quite successful as the number of Seattle City Light’s customers from 1917 to 1932 more than doubled. Satisfied with the coverage and affordability of Seattle City Light’s services, Seattle’s voters greatly respected Ross. He continued working for Seattle City Light until the time of his death in 1939. Ross Dam and Ross Lake were named in his honor. -- Jiwon Amy Yoo

Orville Roundtree (1896-1972)

Orville Roundtree was the Washington state organizer for the Silver Legion of America a Depression era fascist organization. His work as an organizer would result in one of the largest chapters of the “Silver Shirts” and the spread of fascism throughout the Northwest.
In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, William Dudley Pelley founded the Silver Shirts. The Silver Shirts, also known as the Silver Legion of America or the Silver Shirt Legion of America, was an infamous fascist organization affiliated with the Christian Party. They were both a political and spiritual organization, and Pelley, their founder and leader, preached he had supernatural powers. The organization hoped to recover America from Soviet influence and develop a new Christian government. The national and state leaders, like Orville Roundtree, overtly supported Hitler and promoted white supremacy, and the organization grew to fifteen thousand members in 1934. (OlyBlog)
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In 1935, Pelley announced he was running for president. Despite his efforts, his name only showed up on Washington State’s presidential ballot. Pelley hired Orville Roundtree as campaign organizer. Roundtree lived in Chehalis, Washington a small city ninety miles outside of Seattle. At the time of his appointment, Orville Roundtree was an insurance salesman although he had a history in politics. His political career had not been successful; he lost the campaign for a seat in the U.S. Congress in 1932 as a Democrat, and lost again in 1934 under the Liberty Party (OlyBlog). He had planned to run for office again under the Christian Party before he was recruited as Pelley’s state organizer. The Silver Shirts were unsuccessful in capturing the popular vote in Washington and the organization was short-lived. After the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war on fascist Nazi Germany and Italy, the Silver Legion of America disintegrated. -- Dana Mason

James Sakamoto (1903-1955)

James Yoshino Sakamoto, known as Jimmy Sakamoto, was the editor and founder of Japanese American Courier and the second president of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL). Sakamoto was born in 1903 in Seattle, Washington to parents Osamu and Tsuchi Sakamoto as the youngest of three children.
In 1920 Sakamoto graduated from Franklin High School in Seattle and helped established Seattle Progressive Citizens’ League the following year. In 1923 he moved to the East Coast to live with his older sister, where he became a professional welterweight prize fighter. He began taking seminary classes in Princeton University, found a job with New York’s Japanese American Daily News as their English editor and continued fighting on the side.
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By 1926 he was turning blind because of eye injuries due to his fighting, and by 1927 he was widowed by his first wife and permanently blind. He left New York and his baby daughter at his in-laws and headed for Seattle (Tsutakawa 22). Yet, his handicap did not stop him from establishing Seattle’s first English language Japanese newspaper, the Japanese American Courier in 1928 at the age of 25 (Taylor 119). His second wife, Sisao Nishitani, would become the business manager of his newspaper (Tsutakawa 24).

The Japanese American Courier faced challenges in its first year. Then when the Depression came to Seattle in 1930, the newspaper nearly ended as local banks and businesses, which supported the paper, were closing down (Tsutakawa 31). The decline of financial support was also linked to the decline of the Japanese population in Seattle, which dropped down 21 percent during the 1930s (Taylor 127), largely due to the fact that the educated and English-speaking Issei (first generation) could not find adequate jobs in America. Many left for Japan, which came as a hardship to Sakamoto as many were his colleagues and the newspaper’s financial support. To make ends meet, Sakamoto had to network outside the Nisei (second generation) community and made ties with white professionals and scholars to keep the paper going.

From 1936 to 1938, Sakamoto became the second national president of the JACL and encouraged the Nisei to learn more about American politics, especially voting. Two important legal victories for the JACL and the Japanese-American Seattle community during the 1930s were the amendment of the Cable Act, which allowed American-born Japanese woman to keep their citizenship if they married a non-citizen, and the passage of the Veteran’s Bill, which granted citizenship to Japanese-American World War I veterans. (Tsutakawa 43).

Once America entered World War II, Sakamoto and his family were placed into a concentration camp in Minidoka, Idaho, along with 13,000 Japanese-Americans from Washington State. The relocation of Sakamoto's family ended his JACL career and the Japanese American Courier. He left the camp in July 1945.

After the war, Sakamoto found work in the Solicitation Department of St. Vincent de Paul but on his way to work early one December morning, he was hit by a passing car. James Yoshino Sakamoto died on his way to the hospital at the age of 52. -- Jiwon Amy Yoo

Taylor, Quintard. The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994.

Lewis Baxter Schwellenbach (1894-1948)

Lewis B. Schwellenbach was a politician from Washington State, having served all three branches of the federal government as a senator from 1935 to 1940, a judge from 1940 to 1945, and was the Secretary of Labor from 1945 to 1948. As a liberal Democratic and a strong supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, he advocated for public ownership of water power and was largely against World War II.
Schwellenbach was born in Superior, Wisconsin but always considered Washington his home given that he lived in Spokane since he was seven years old. He attended the University of Washington and graduated from its law school in 1917. He served in the Army during World War I and upon his return was admitted to the bar in 1919. He then opened a law practice in Seattle that largely represented organized labor.
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Schwellenbach became the King County Democratic Party chairman, allowing many to think he had a sure chance of winning the 1932 elections for governor. He ran against liberal William Pemberton and conservative Clarence D. Martin, focusing on the failing economy and recommending tax reduction. However, Schwellenbach lost in the Democratic primaries and Martin became governor of Washington.

The 1932 elections did not stop Schwellenbach’s political career as he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1934, a position that allowed him to become close friends with the future President Harry Truman. As Senator, he continually advocated for public power and supported all of Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, including Roosevelt’s controversial plan to increase the number of justices on the Supreme Court. Much of the legislation he was involved with was important to Washington’s economy, including bills concerning the fishing and lumber industries, which were Washington’s two most highest income sources. He was also a strong believer in world peace and even made a trip to Europe in 1938, where he unsuccessfully tried to organize an international conference to ensure world peace. Although the war could not be avoided, Schwellenbach continued to advocate world peace and passionately defended the Neutrality Law.

On December 1940, Schwellenbach officially resigned as Senator to become federal district judge in Spokane, a career he was most passionate about. After World War II and the death of President Roosevelt, Truman urged Schwellenbach to accept the position as U.S. Secretary of Labor, which he did in 1945. However, an injury in 1946 caused Schwellenbach to decrease his activities as Secretary of Labor. As his health weakened, Schwellenbach was admitted to the hospital in May of 1948. Two months later on June 10, 1948, Lewis B. Schwellenbach died from a cardiac arrest. -- Jiwon Amy Yoo

Lee Paul Sieg (1879–1963)

Lee Paul Sieg was the President of the University of Washington, Seattle from 1934 to 1946. During his time as President, he was responsible for several changes in the university’s curriculum and politics. One of them was the establishment of the University College, the unified College for liberal arts and sciences under Dean Edward Lauer. Sieg was born in Marshalltown, Iowa on October 7, 1879. He attended the University of Iowa and received his Masters in Physics there in 1901 and his Doctorate degree in Philosophy in 1910. Before coming to the University of Washington, Sieg held several leadership and teaching positions in various colleges. He was the head of the Physics Department at Carleton College in Minnesota from 1903 to 1906. In 1906 to 1924, he was a professor at the University of Iowa. He then made a respectable reputation for himself at the University of Pittsburgh as the Dean of the college, the Dean of the School of Education, and the Dean of the Graduate School from 1924 to 1934.
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Sieg was well known and respected for his work at the University of Pittsburgh. When the University of Washington needed to hire a new President during the start of the Great Depression crisis, Sieg was nominated to help pull the university through. Sieg accepted the position on June 1, 1934 and even asked for a temporary reduction in his salary since the university and the state had gone through numerous budget cuts before 1934. Sieg also accepted a proposal in 1934 from the Instructors Association, an organization for the university’s faculty members and assistants. The proposal included many benefits for the faculty members, which were non-existent before Sieg became President. That included the elections of a faculty Senate, better pay, retirement, and tenures.

However, some of his views were unpopular amongst his students and faculty. He voiced his opposition against student-led political activities and warned his students against communist influence. He also did not approve of the “nepotism” at the university and eliminated as many female faculty members as possible if they were married to another faculty member. When he retired from his position in 1946 he was the first to be named president emeritus at the University of Washington.

Sieg died on October 8, 1963 in Seattle, Washington at the age of 84. -- Jiwon Amy Yoo

Lowell Wakefield (1909-1977)

Lowell Wakefield was the founder and editor of the Voice of Action, the unofficial newspaper of the Northwest Communist Party from 1933-1936. A Washington State native, he briefly attended the UW, but was expelled for leading a student movement against the UW's compulsory ROTC policy. He then journeyed to the Tennessee where he became the first southern organizer of the International Labor Defense, the legal arm of the Communist Party USA. It was in this capacity that he broke the story of the Scottsboro Nine in Alabama in 1931. Wakefield's initial reports were critical in drawing the ILD and the Communist Party's attention to the case, which went on to become one of the most celebrated civil rights campaigns of the twentieth century.
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Wakefield returned to Seattle in 1932 to serve on a three-member District 12 Executive Committee along with Hutchin R. Hutchins and Alan Max and to organize a Northwest branch of the ILD. In 1934 he ran unsuccessfully for the State Legislature on the Communist Party ticket. After the Voice of Action was subsumed under the WCF's Sunday News, Wakefield became a correspondent for the Daily Worker. In 1938 he was a Daily Worker correspondent for the trials of Nazi espionage agents in the United States and published a book on the events titled Hitler's Spy Ploy in the USA.

Wakefield underwent a remarkable reinvention after World War II. In 1946 he founded Deep Sea Trawlers, later renamed Wakefield Seafoods, a small fishing and canning company specializing in what was then a relatively unknown commodity – Alaskan King Crab. By 1955 Wakefield Seafoods was producing 85 percent of the total King Crab catch for American consumers. Wakefield is widely credited with being the founder of the modern king crab industry and pioneering many of its most important advances. –Daren Salter

Monrad Charles Wallgren (1891-1961)

Mon C. Wallgren served in the United States Congress from 1933 to 1941, was a U.S. Senator from 1941 to 1945, and was governor of Washington State from 1945 to 1949. As Congressman, he advocated for state tourism by introducing the bill to establish Olympic National Park, which was approved in 1936. His greatest claim to fame would come during his term as governor with the 1945 Unemployment Compensation Act. Wallgren was born on April 17, 1891 in Des Moines, Iowa. His family moved to Washington when he was ten years old. He attended Business College in Everett and graduated Washington State School of Optometry in Spokane in 1914. That same year, he married Mabel C. Liberty. During World War I, he served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Coast Artillery, as well as the National Guard.
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Wallgren's political career started as member of the U.S. House of Representative from 1933-1940; his biggest project being the development of the Olympic National Park, which he believed would help Washington's economy by bringing in state tourism. He served in the Senate from 1941 to 1944, which coincided with the Pearl Harbor attack and the United States entrance to World War II. After Pearl Harbor, a committee was organized to deal with the "Japanese Problem" in the Pacific Coast, with Wallgren serving as chairman. As head of the committee, he helped plan the internment of Japanese Americans in Washington in 1942.

As the war ended in 1945, Wallgren was elected as Washington state governor, an office he held until 1949. In his inaugural speech, he stressed the need to improve Washington's economy, worried that the end of the war might mean escalating joblessness and a return to Great Depression problems. He pushed for the state to open up more jobs for the unemployed as well as encouraging unemployment compensation payments and sickness benefits, which was granted in the 1945 Unemployment Compensation Act. His term as governor saw the economy improve. In April of 1946, the state counted 120,000 unemployed. The number fell to 70,000 within a few months.

Wallgren tried to run for a second term as governor but was defeated by former governor Arthur Langlie. Wallgren’s term as governor was marked by the end of the war and an improved economy. He then went on to serve in the Federal Power Commission for two years, retiring from politics in 1951.

William H. Wilson

When the Great Depression struck Washington State, the black community saw a rapid decline in wealth, employment and civil rights. William H. Wilson worked to improve the civil rights of African Americans through his editorship of the business paper, Northwest Enterprise and as a leader of the NAACP. He founded the Northwest Enterprise, in 1920 (The Northwest Enterprise, HistoryLink) which would quickly become the most popular and successful African American paper in Seattle (Taylor 72). The paper circulated outside of the city as well and was “expanded…beyond black Seattle to a regional market (Taylor 72).” Northwest Enterprise established itslef as the voice of African Americans in the Northwest.
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This outlet proved extremely important for the black community during the Great Depression. When the depression began, African Americans saw increased competition in the workforce from other races (Taylor 64). Despite the intensified race relations, Wilson urged businesses to refrain from limiting their consumers to African Americans. Wilson did not only believe in the social and political emancipation of blacks, but of all races. As editor of Northwest Enterprise, Wilson used his position in the media to help increase black employment, minimize racism and segregation and strengthen and unify the black community. -- Dana Mason and Jiwon Amy Yoo

Marion Anthony Zioncheck (1901-1936)

On August 7, 1936, while waiting in their car, Rubye Louise Nix watched her husband, Marion Zioncheck fall to his death from the 5 th story window of the Arctic Building on 3 rd Ave and Cherry St in Seattle. The suicide note found after his death read, “My only hope in life was to improve the condition of an unfair economic system that held no promise to those that all the wealth of even a decent chance to survive let alone live” (Seattle Star, August 8, 1936). Although in part unintelligible, Zioncheck clearly strove to help those who he believed to be taken advantage of by the political and economic system of the Great Depression. More...

A progressive Democrat and passionate supporter of President Roosevelt’s New Deal, Marion Zioncheck served as Congressman for Washington’s 1 st congressional district from 1933 to 1936. He championed the plight of the average worker declaring he would not endorse the aims of banks or powerful corporations when they conflicted with those of the working man (Zioncheck).

Born M. Antoni Zajaczek on December 5, 1900, in Poland, Zioncheck moved to the United States with his family at age 3. He attended the University of Washington in 1919 but had to drop out due to a lack of funds. Zioncheck began working in logging camps as a rigger and timber faller. He eventually saved enough money to return to the UW and earned a degree in law in 1928. In 1929 he was accepted to the bar and began practicing.

Zioncheck made a name for himself as a lawyer who fought for the destitute and underrepresented, including unemployed workers, radicals, and labor union figures, often working pro bono. In 1931, Zioncheck fought with Seattle Mayor Frank Edwards over the privatization of Seattle City Light which resulted in Edward’s recall and the reinstatement of Superintendent J.D. Ross. Customer rates dropped 75% as a result and Zioncheck found himself a local hero in Seattle (Fraser). With the momentum of this victory, Marion Zioncheck ran for Congress in 1932 and won. His time in Congress was marked by his efforts to fervently promote FDR’s New Deal policy, which he believed even the president did not push far enough. He also struggled to find work for those unemployed during the Great Depression in Seattle. Zioncheck became well known, however, when his off-duty activities made national headlines, including driving across the White House lawn in his own car.

Depression set in for Zioncheck and he was admitted to a psychiatry ward but stayed only a short time. Upon his release he mentioned to his trusted friend King County Prosecutor Warren G. Magnuson he might not seek reelection ( Crowley). Magnuson promptly filed for his congressional seat which may have been the final straw for Zioncheck. The next day, August 7, 1936, Marion Zioncheck leaped to his death from the 5 th story of the Arctic building. -- Christopher Smith